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last week's News

DEAR FRIENDS,

Tonight is your last chance to see SHERLOCK HOLMES and/or IT’S COMPLICATED at the Balboa. And your last chance to enter our lobby drawing for fantastic Sherlock Holmes DVD box sets.

We are excited to be bringing in for a very limited engagement two of the years most praised and offbeat films, A SINGLE MAN and BROKEN EMBRACES. You can read all about them below. Both are film festival favorites and Golden Globe nominees. How perfect for our Golden Globes weekend. Come early, see one of the films…grab an early dinner at one of the many neighborhood restaurants and come back for the Golden Globes at the Balboa.

SHOP LOCALLY

We were honored to have Mayor Newsom and friends join us for SHERLOCK HOLMES last weekend. We know that the mayor is a fan of neighborhood theaters and shopping locally. It is always a pleasure when high profile people practice what they preach, even in a quiet way.

Sincerely,
Gary and the Balboa Staff

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About This Week's Movies

BROKEN EMBRACES

A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car crash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost Lena, the love of his life.

This man uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym with which he signs his literary works, stories and scripts, and Mateo Blanco, his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. After the accident, Mateo Blanco reduces himself to his seudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films he can only survive with the idea that Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena. In the present day, Harry Caine lives thanks to the scripts he writes and to the help he gets rom his faithful former production manager, Judit García, and from Diego, her son, his secretary, typist and guide. Since he decided to live and tell stories, Harry is an active, attractive blind man who has developed all his other senses in order to enjoy life, on a basis of irony and self‐induced amnesia. He has erased from his biography any trace of his first identity, Mateo Blanco. One night Diego has an accident and Harry takes care of him (his mother, Judit, is out of Madrid and they decide not to tell her anything so as not to alarm her). During the first nights of his convalescence, Diego asks him about the time when he answered to the name of Mateo Blanco, after a moment of astonishment Harry can’t refuse and he tells Diego hat happened fourteen years before with the idea of entertaining him, just as a father tells his little child a story so that he’ll fall asleep. The story of Mateo, Lena, Judit and Ernesto Martel is a story of “amour fou”, dominated by fatality, jealously, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex. A moving and terrible story, the most expressive image of which is the photo of two lovers embracing, torn into a thousand pieces.

Rated R for sexual content, language and some drug material. 127 minutes.

Official website

"Broken Embraces is a voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors, caressing Penelope Cruz, using the devices of a Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath."
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"Almodovar could've played it entirely for laughs, with a flick of his wrist and a tonal adjustment. It's best he didn't, though. It’s a film lover's delight."
- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"The writer-director is up to his old tricks, creating an onion of an experience -- a movie within a movie within a movie, irony in each layer, poignancy that stings and whimsy that bites."
- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

"It all adds up to an entertaining mash of suspense and melodrama."
- - Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle

"Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces is a lush, deeply romantic noir dense with nods to films past, yet it plays as if it sprung fully formed from the director’s unconscious."
- David Edelstein, New York Magazine

Penelope Cruz Interview 1

Penelope Cruz Interview 2

Pedro Almodóvar interview

Video interview with Pedro

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A SINGLE MAN

A SINGLE MAN is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, it is the story of a British college professor (Colin Firth) who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner. The story is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.

A SINGLE MAN is produced by Tom Ford through his Los Angeles based production company, Fade to Black, in association with Chris Weitz and Andrew Miano of Depth of Field, and Robert Salerno of Artina Films. The screenplay is written by Tom Ford and David Scearce.

Rated R – 101 minutes

Official Website

"Just about every sequence and flourish and detail in Ford's film feels and looks right. It is primarily Firth's triumph. But it is not a solitary one."
- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"Several diverse currents come together in A Single Man to form a good movie and a great opportunity for actor Colin Firth."
- Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"How fitting that Firth should carry A Single Man, a movie of quiet but potent emotional power, perfectly suited to his singular gifts."
- Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

"Wrenching and ravishing. ... An exquisite, almost sensual grief suffuses every frame."
- Bob Mondello, NPR

"A Single Man is more than a pretty movie. It's also a careful examination of love, loss and mourning."
- Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

Colin Firth video interview

Short interviews with Tom Ford, Colin Firth, Matthew Goode, and Nicholas Hoult

Interview with director Tom Ford

Interview 1 with Julianne Moore (text)

Interview 2 with Julianne Moore (video)

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FREE POPCORN WITH YOUR "I’D RATHER BE AT THE BALBOA" DISCOUNT CARD!

Now, as an added treat for our most regular movie-goers, each discount card gets you one free complimentary size popcorn per card. You choose the visit that you would like to redeem it--just bring your card to the concession stand to receive your free popcorn on us. Thank you.

Two people can use the card at each visit. Good for 6 months from date of purchase.

Available anytime at our box office.

The Balboa has the lowest prices in town and you get to see the hottest new movies in the comfort of an independently owned neighborhood theater with history…it was built in 1926…..and, we are told over and over…we’ve got the friendliest staff in town!

Just a reminder, that on your Birthday, you are our guest. That’s right. You get in free with proof of your birth date.

And at all other times you can get the “I’d Rather Be At the Balboa” Discount Card.

What a deal! 5 tickets to the Balboa for $32.50. That is only $6.50 per show. Good every day and night. And two people can use the card at once. You can go on a date even when you are low on cash with your Balboa Card. A savings of up to $12.50! Makes a perfect gift as well.

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WIN TICKETS TO FIDDLER ON THE ROOF STARRING HARVEY FIERSTEIN

Harvey Fierstein stars in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, coming to the Golden Gate Theatre January 27 through February 21. Mr. Fierstein starred as the iconic milkman, Tevye in the recent critically acclaimed Broadway production. Audiences now have the rare opportunity to see this Tony Award-winning actor embrace one of his favorite roles in this Jerome Robbins inspired production. A perennial hit since it first opened in 1964, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF has enjoyed critical acclaim for bringing to the stage a poignant story about the enduring bonds of the family.

Enter for a chance to win a pair of tickets on Friday, January 29 at 8pm!
More information on the show.

Tour Page

HOW TO WIN TICKETS

This Saturday evening we will give away several pairs of tickets for FIDDLER ON THE ROOF on Friday, January 29 at 8pm. Pairs will be given away at each evening show on Saturday of both BROKEN EMBRACES and A SINGLE MAN.

We will also give away a pair via a lobby drawing during the next week so that you have a chance anytime you attend the Balboa between Friday, January 15 and Saturday, January 23. A winner will be drawn at random and notified Sunday, Jan. 24.
Good luck!

WIN TICKETS TO SEE THE AMAZING PEKING ACROBATS
AT ZELLERBACH HALL

• Peking Acrobats
• Sat, Jan 23, 2 pm; and Sun, Jan 24, 3 pm
• Zellerbach Hall Tickets start at $24
• Half-price for ages 16 and under!

"The things these kids can do before breakfast…seem to push the envelope of human possibility. If daring and dexterity turn you on, this is a show that will probably twist you around in your seat…it’s amazing and exciting!"
—New York Post

Breathtaking maneuvers atop a precarious pagoda of chairs...treacherous wire walking... astonishing displays of contortion...and all the excitement and festive pageantry of a Chinese Carnival! With the addition of dazzling special effects and live musical accompaniment from an authentic Chinese orchestra, these awe-inspiring tumblers, cyclists, jugglers, and clowns transform 2,000-year-old athletic disciplines into a kaleidoscope of entertainment and wonder.

HOW TO WIN TICKETS

You can enter to win a pair of tickets to see the Peking Acrobats on Saturday Jan 23 at 2 pm. To qualify, send an email with your name and email address in the body of the email and PEKING in the subject line. To qualify all entries must be received no later than Monday, January 18 by noon.

Please be certain that you can attend, as the tickets are not transferable. One entry per person. Multiple entries will disqualify all of them. If you have won tickets in a Balboa contest during the past three month, please do not enter.

Please send your entry to balboafans (at) yahoo.com. (Change (at) to @. We are trying to avoid spam.)
Good luck!

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NOW PLAYING AT THE VOGUE

Our friends at the Vogue Theatre, on Sacramento St., are playing UP IN THE AIR starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick, and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking).

Rated R for language and some sexual content - running Time: 1 hour-46 minutes

Daily Show Times Beginning January 1st: 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:20
Special Baby Matinee Tuesday, January 12th at 11AM

VogueSF.com

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NEW PHOTOS IN THE LOBBY: QUANG-TUAN LUONG’S INDIA SERIES

Quang-Tuan Luong, the artist responsible for our very popular National Parks series, has brought in a new show with some of his gorgeous prints from India.

Mehrangarh Fort walls, blue houses, and setting sun. Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

India, the largest democracy in the world, is home to a tremendously varied population of over one billion people that coexist in a vibrant multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-ethic, and multi-cultural country. Over the millenia of history of the country, those people have built an unmatched architectural heritage of rock-carved caves, places of worship for a large number of religions, mausoleums, and palaces. From small things such as fabrics and spices, to entire towns painted with a striking tint, India is possibly the most colorful of all countries.

"Each of the ten images is from a different site in the country, visited during just 12 days of travel in 2007. For a more representative look of the extent of what's there to see, or contact Quang-Tuan Luong, check www.terragalleria.com"

All photographs are available as limited edition prints.

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KIM SON VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT DISCOUNT

With Balboa ticket stub 10% off food at Kim Son. Our staff and customers think this Vietnamese restaurant is one of the best places to eat in the neighborhood. Want to eat there before the show? Buy your ticket at the box office first and then show it at dinner. Make sure you keep it to get into the theater. This is an ongoing discount so you can also use it on your next visit to the neighborhood. Kim Son is just a few doors away from the Balboa at 3614 Balboa St

Read what others say.

NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANTS

One of the strengths of the Balboa is our neighborhood. Other than the bank, all the businesses are family owned and operated. The restaurants are especially wonderful. On the outer Balboa strip there are 24 eating establishments by my count. You can eat Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Italian, American, Mexican, Seafood and Vietnamese cuisines. The foods are fresh, distinctive and all reasonably priced. The media food critics have only discovered a few of them but the locals know a good thing. We encourage you to enjoy a meal at one of these fine eateries while visiting the Balboa. All are within easy walking distance. And please send us reviews and recommendations we can share with our other guests. Send reviews to balboafans@yahoo.com

We love it when you send us a review of a neighborhood restaurant you've enjoyed. We encourage you all to write about your culinary adventures in the Outer Richmond.

Check out the Menu Book in our lobby and our COMPLETE NEW RESTAURANT LIST.

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BALBOA THEATRE INFO

3630 Balboa Street (37th Ave)
San Francisco 94121
(415) 221-8184
www.BalboaMovies.com

Bike Rack in front of the Balboa
Muni Bus #31 Balboa or #18 46th Ave stop at Balboa &37th., Also #5 Fulton and all 38 Geary Street buses stop two (long) blocks from Balboa.
Relatively easy Parking

San Francisco's Favorite Neighborhood Theatre
Voted by the Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, SF Gate's A List and San Francisco Magazine

General Admission: $9.00
Seniors (60+) and Children (11-) $6.50
Bargain Matinees: All Seats $6.50 for shows in ( )

SCHOOL NIGHT - Mondays are School Days and Nights. With proof of being a student, faculty or staff member, your admission is only $6.50 on Mondays.

On Your Birthday, You Are Our Guest.

The Balboa is Wheelchair and Handicapped Accessible

YOUR FAVORITE SNACK BAR

Great Snack Bar selection at reasonable prices. Your favorite candies including Dove, Toberlerone, and Ghirardelli chocolates.

We serve Caffe Trieste Coffees, fine Tazo teas, chai, hot chocolate, hot dogs, Aidells' poultry Sausages, Veggie Dogs, Dreyer's Dibs, and Delicious Cookies.

And of course fresh popcorn made with sunflower oil and real butter.

No More Naked Popcorn.

Have you tried our complimentary popcorn seasonings?

We have a wide assortment from Kernel Seasonings.

Try White Cheddar, Caramel, Parmesan, Garlic and more...

We also have Nutritional Yeast that has proven to be one of our most popular toppings. And now hot sauce!

Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, gossip? Send us a note

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